House at Row's Edge
by Seinden
Summary: After mysteriously inheriting a decrepit property on Spinner's End, Hermione begins to discover she's suffered one nasty Obliviate from its previous owner.
1. The Key

**House at Row's Edge **

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_._

_14 Spinner's End._

The little note was roughly scrawled in familiar, spiky script. Its ink was greying and transparent, as if the bottle had unexpectedly run out and the author added water in an attempt to prolong the last drops. There were no other words on the note, no pleasantries and no instructions, just a single line written hurriedly in thinning black.

Hermione held it tightly between her fingers, glancing down again and again to check for the house number. It was a simple number, one that she should have been able to remember after a single look, but somehow it continually eluded her memory. When she found number 14, she stood at the black door and hesitated.

What would she find here? Surprises? Disappointments? Terrible things?

Could she even find enough irreverence to walk through a stranger's home?

Reaching into the Ministry-issued envelope in her bag, she pulled out an iron skeleton key. the key's grooves were dark with age and oxidation, giving the impression that it opened the way to a dark dungeon. Perhaps it was not the key, but rather her memory of the man that led her to believe such a thing was behind the door. Either way, she felt strangely terrified and altogether undeserving of this gift from her deceased professor. In fact, she was still barely certain that he was really dead despite having seen him lying in a coffin.

Snape's will had finally been released after the post-war euphoria, and much to the shock of many curious wizards, it contained only one stipulation. Everything he owned would pass into the hands of Hermione Granger, a girl he seemingly had no connection with. No connection and no goodwill.

People gossiped about the matter; they said horrible, untrue things, insinuating the crass and the impossible. Hermione's stomach knotted up in angry discomfort every time she heard those hushed mutterings behind her back. They whispered that Severus Snape had been a _deeply_ disturbed man, a deviant who took advantage of an innocent young Miss Granger. And as if they'd expected the worst of him and suspected all along, surprise was the one thing lacking in their tones. They all shoot their heads and sighed in resignation like pedestrians watching a train wreck they knew to be inevitable.

But it was laughable for anyone of sane mind to think that she had anything to do with such an unpleasant man—a brave man, she grudgingly admitted, but unpleasant nonetheless.

Hermione vehemently denied the rumors, yet people still gave her looks that were a mixture of deep pity and disgust no matter how many times she tried. No one could fathom why he would leave her his life possessions, if not for a secret affair. Not that she could think of any legitimate reasons, but Hermione liked to think that there was more to the story. Perhaps there was something there that he'd wanted someone of sound reason to discover.

And she wouldn't blame him for wanting such a thing, but she suspected that the more likely answer was that Snape had no one in this world. He'd probably been appalled at the thought of leaving his property to the Ministry of Magic and merely pulled her name out of hat.

The little house on Spinner's End looked identical to its neighbors, sporting yellowing brick and black rain trails under the windows. The house number bore striking resemblance to the patina of the house key, grimy and metallic. It precariously hung to the door on crooked nails. Hermione touched the flaking paint of the wooden door frame and felt it crackle under her fingers.

So this was where the fearsome professor had lived. She couldn't discern why, but she felt it was rather fitting, as though the image was always in the back of her mind that he'd spent his time in a place like this.

The lock gave little resistance toward its key, resounding a thin racking click when Hermione pushed it forward. Turning the key was another matter altogether. Blackening metal refused to move easily, and a little magic had to be applied to grease the screeching mechanical process. In all honesty, the young witch was very surprised that Snape's house was locked by something as simple as a metal key. She'd expected the entry to be full of wards and harmful hexes. Perhaps the magic had died with the wizard.

A loud jamming thump signaled the bolt unlocked, breaking her thoughts. A number of subsequent clicks crawled up the door frame—magical locks. Once they were silent, Hermione pushed the door forward with tentative hands. Creaking from hinges vibrating through her senses as the door opened slightly. She stopped.

Darkness was beyond, and the witch was unsure if she'd actually chalked up enough courage to cross the threshold. Pulling the key from its hole, she grasped it tightly in her palm.

There was a strange texture to it that she hadn't noticed before; a distinct ridging of the teeth that felt familiar, like a long forgotten childhood toy. Hermione ran her thumb down the large raised-squares pattern. It was an exercise that spoke of repetition, of previous encounters. Again and again, she felt the message of lines and spaces that the key drew on her thumb.

She suddenly realized that she knew the message well. The act brought her back to a fuzzy moment of sitting in his office, playing with the key. When had she ever visited his office? It must have been an illusion cooked up by her anxious mind, she reasoned. But the jars of strange floating ingredients lining his shelves, the echo of water trickling inside the walls, the way he seemed to melt into the room as if they and him were one and the same; it was far too real to be an illusion. The more times Hermione ran her finger across the key, the clearer it became.

In fact, a strange and utterly forgotten conversation with her professor began to take shape in her head. The deep lines of his scowl were becoming ever more true.

She stepped into the dreary, dusty sitting room.

_"That would be foolish and highly inappropriate to consider, Miss Granger."_ She heard his low voice droning in the distance.

The sound was a stolen thought slowly crawling back into her mind.

Hermione suddenly found that she'd known him after all.

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><p>AN: Welcome to my newest brain child! Playing with the mind is always a bit fun, isn't it?<p> 


	2. The Voice

**Chapter 2  
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><strong>

Spooked, Hermione returned home after only a quick assessment walk through the house. On the way back to the flat she shared with Luna, she continued to play with the key, hoping to gain some clarity into that strange memory, but no details would present themselves. All she recalled was the thought of him sitting in his office, leaning casually back in his chair, quietly despising yet tolerant of her presence.

At dinner, she glanced across their small table at Luna. The other girl was quietly lost in thought as she pushed her peas around.

"Luna, what do you think I ought to do?"

"Oh, wow, do what?" Luna snapped out of her reverie with a dreamy smile. Never one to shy from eye contact, her bright eyes bore straight into Hermione's, causing her roommate to look down at her plate uncomfortably.

Hermione replied softly, "The house, Snape's house. Have you been listening?"

"Yes, sounds lovely."

"It's not lovely, and I don't want it."

"Why not? It's perfectly Wizarding." So far Hermione had only managed to say that it had a slightly fading expansion charm in basement.

"It's creepy," Hermione stated matter-of-factly.

"Oh," the blonde witch pushed her peas into a mound and toppled the pyramid.

"I don't know what to do about it. I don't want to stay there, it's dreadful and old, and I don't like what people say about it—about him, about me—all untrue, mind you. It's really quite a terrible place. No wonder he was so surly. I can't decide if the house made him horrible or if he made the house horrible. What do you think I ought to do?"

"Um..." Luna pondered the question like it was a great philosophical dilemma then asked eagerly, "Are there any plants?"

Hermione stared at Luna impatiently. She'd learned slowly to not get angry at the non-sequiturs, but that didn't mean Hermione had gotten used to them. Far from it. "Have you been listening at all? No, it doesn't have a garden," she snapped.

"You could sell it."

"Yes, I've thought about it." Hermione spoke fast, like she'd completely considered the idea already and had just been waiting for someone else to justify it. "But it's not really in a good location, probably wouldn't fetch much. I mean, the house is poorly furnished and falling apart at the edges. There are a lot of books, so many books! Some of them could be valuable, but I'm thinking those can be donated to Hogwarts to rebuild the library, seeing as some of it was destroyed and all—"

"Hermione," Luna interrupted gently, "I think you've already decided."

"But—it wouldn't fetch much. People won't want to buy Severus Snape's house. And it seems so disrespectful!"

"Then fix it up," she suggested as the peas were carefully stacked up again. "You can clean out all the Snape-ness and sell it to Muggles. They won't know who he was."

"Muggles, perhaps. The proceeds can go to starting a civil rights organization, to provide non-wizarding beings representation in court. Or maybe for lobbying new legislation. Yes, that'll be good press. Fallen war hero funding justice. I can almost hear Rita Skeeter spewing it out in that awful column of hers," Hermione muttered to herself, waving her fork about.

"Do you think of him often now?"

"Ron?"

"No, Snape."

Hermione's shoulders slacked uncomfortably as the inexplicable memory dredged itself up again. "I wouldn't say."

Luna seemed to be fishing for something. She'd never mentioned Snape until that moment. In fact, Luna had been the only one who never gave any indication she found the idea of her unusual inheritance suspicious.

"So you don't really think about him at all," Luna repeated curiously.

"I suppose no," Hermione replied slowly.

"Well!" the other girl smiled widely and slammed her hands down on the table. Her fork clattered against the plate from the sudden jolt. "How about those books, eh?," she asked in a slow and slightly raised voice, "any good ones?"

Hermione remained silent, unsettled by what had just exchanged. She stared at Luna with her mouth open and shook her head slowly. It was a scene of strange things lost in translation between them, like two people speaking different languages talking about different topics. Trying to divert the conversation elsewhere, Hermione pushed the question away. She couldn't explain why, but she could not admit to herself that she was terrified by Luna's question.

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The next morning, Hermione stuffed what seemed to be an infinite number of boxes into her expanded purse. She donned an old shirt which sported a large Chudley Cannons logo. It was probably the first time she'd worn it since she'd unwrapped the unfortunate Christmas gift from Ron. Apparating in a hurry and clutching her bag of boxes, Hermione felt her heart pounding excitedly. This was going to be a great endeavor.

Instead of arriving at the house's door, she found she'd mistaken the address and was three rows over at Foxglove Lane 14 instead. Mildly annoyed at her own lack of navigating ability, Hermione tried again. This time, she appeared directly in front the door, nose inches away from the metal numbers. Stumbling back and fidgeting with the key, she made an ungraceful entrance. Clutching the key tightly, she hoped to draw strength from its familiarity.

The sitting room was dark and smelled of stall, recycled air with a fine layer of dust covering the wood floor and tables. There was a large shoulder height pile of papers and random boxes of items precariously stacked in a leaning tower by the doorway. Circles of fresh footprints in the dust surrounded the collection which looked ready to topple over at any moment. Things collected from his office at Hogwarts, no doubt.

Hermione shut the front door behind her and was engulfed in curtained darkness. For a moment, she felt afraid. _It's just a house!_

Opening the heavy curtains with a flick of her wand, she forced light into the drab room. Snape had been an unusually neat man who'd aligned all the furniture in perfect right angles against each other. There was a very crisp look about the room despite the furniture being ragged and mismatched. It spoke of deliberation and thought. What gripped Hermione more than his order was the lifelessness of the house. There was an empty glass with a ring of evaporated crust on the dinner table, unlaced shoes by the door, a quill by the window. They stood frozen and eager as if anticipating an owner who was only momentarily delayed. Everything in the house seemed to be wasting away as they waited with bated breath for the moment he would emerge from the door.

But he would never be back, and a certain pitiful staleness permeated underneath the dust. Newpapers sat on the far end table, perfectly stacked and squared. Hermione ran her fingers across the top and felt grit beneath her skin. January 1998 was the date of the topmost page. She wondered if he'd been returned since.

Most likely not.

A single potted plan sat on a wiry stand by the curtain. She'd missed it before, but it sat behind the long curtains where it could see the smallest bit of light. To her surprise, it was still alive, probably from a self watering charm. Hermione gave a little sigh of determination and pulled her hair up. She was ready to clean.

There was much to be done: items to be packed, surfaces to be wiped down, floors to be swept. The stack by the doorway would have to be packed up first, as it was quite an obstruction, followed by the books which lined practically every inch of the walls, including the back of the door. Those would be a trial as she would have to consciously force herself to not become trapped by her inevitable desire to read them. Pulling a few boxes from her purse, she went to work on the papers. Snape had been meticulous about writing his thoughts, it seemed, with comments written all over the margins of his notes. Hermione took the top page and read his annotations to his own words. _"Idiot children didn't fare well. A few fainted."_ She sighed as she put it away.

Stack after stack of parchment, she tried to not read his cramped writing as she neatly stuffed them into boxes by category. Sometimes there were a few notes which made her laugh, and she stopped to enjoy his quips. Absently, she flipped through the pages and wondered if there would be anything written by her that he'd kept. To her disappointment, there didn't seem to be any.

Teaching notes, student's old essays and exams he'd failed to return, and other miscellaneous documents slowly disappeared from the floor as the morning passed. Once Hermione reached the last stragglers, she decided she would take a break once they were processed. Picking up the stray pieces of parchment, she sorted them: Hogwarts contract, Ministry memo, some unknown letter.

When she reached the letter, she stopped.

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_Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers Summer Apprenticeship_  
><em>Applicant: Hermione J. Granger<em>  
><em>Date: 30.10.1996<em>

_Dear Professor Snape,_  
><em>Your letter of recommendation has been received...<em>

_.  
><em>

Her application? In the haze of the war, she'd all but forgotten that she'd applied. She'd been so jealous of Harry's mysterious potions book that she applied out of some absurd desperation to best him. Frantically, she skimmed the page and felt it all come back to her. She'd gone to see Snape, to ask for a recommendation. He had been reluctant, but agreed to write her one. Hermione set the letter aside and found a draft of the recommendation under it. Her pulse quickened from the mischief of accessing privileged words.

She gazed intently at his slanted script and began to read word by word. Hermione sat and leaned against the bookcase to settle in for the long read.

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_…Miss Granger is a highly gifted witch who would bring unmatched enthusiasm and ability to the apprenticeship program. In all my years as a Potions Master, I have rarely had the pleasure to teach a student as bright and eager as Miss Granger..._

_._

Inexplicably, she felt her eyes watering. He'd been so kind. There were many instances where he'd struck out back handed compliments and replaced words like "_overzealous_" and "_show off_". Hermione giggled at his original choices for words. Despite all the biting comments spoken to her face, he'd written her an incredibly flattering letter. Hermione sniffed and placed the letter in her purse, drawing out more boxes in the process.

She felt guilty of being so dismissive and misjudging of her professor, complaining his house was creepy and valueless. How could she have been so cruel?

As promised, Hermione went to the kitchen for some water after she'd tucked all the paper away. Looking through the cabinets, she found an old black mug hidden amongst some yellowing dishes. Holding the mug under the tap, she turned the water on. The water ran slightly brown from disuse. Hermione dumped the offensive fluid out and cleaned the cup with her wand, filling it with conjured water. This new water tasted no better than the faucet looked: metallic and unexpectedly rancid.

Disgusted, the witch set the mug aside and returned to the sitting room. So much for a break. She shrunk the packed up boxes and set them on the coffee table to be the beginnings of a pyramid of her professor's possessions. A few small boxes still scattered around the doorway were next on the agenda. She opened the first, tugging roughly at flaps. Her hand pressed against carefully folded fabric as she rummaged through the contents hastily. It was all black and difficult to identify.

"_Lumos_," she whispered, lighting up the doorway with eery, blue wandlight.

Hermione suddenly flinched away from the box, feeling like she'd suddenly violated his privacy. The box was full of his teaching robes. Her gaze traced the carefully tailored shoulder seams and felt him towering over her, all stiff and imposing. She unconsciously glanced over her shoulder, fearful of him appearing there scowling at her, nostrils flared and livid.

Frantic, she quickly levitated the boxes away from the door and up the stairs. She left them sitting at the top of the steps, not wanting to personally enter the private areas of the house. They would have to remain there until she felt ready.

Once her breathing had calmed, Hermione summoned a broom. A crooked old thing flew out from the cupboard in a cloud of dust. She directed the tattered old broom to sweep the dust bunnies and odd bits around the doorway while sitting on the couch. Hard bristles scraped against the wooden floor, generating a constant shuffling sound. Hermione was acutely aware that this was not her house as she sat listening to the rhythmic noise.

But it was good to have something to break the silence. Soon, she animated some washcloths to clear grime from the windows as well as a few dusters. Together, all the equipment made a chorus of soothing buzzes and squeaks. Motion seemed to breath some life into the house, and she was glad.

In the midst of the bustle, she seemed to catch a human voice. Thinking it was a neighbor, she ran to the front window and glanced toward the door. There was no one outside; everyone was hiding in their homes from the humid outdoors. Hermione frowned; she could have sworn there was someone speaking. Giving the outside one last look, she returned to the cleaning.

Standing in the middle of the room, she began to levitate books from the shelves into boxes based on subject matter. Many of the volumes were related to the Dark Arts, and Hermione shuddered at some of their titles. Hogwarts' restricted section will certainly be well stocked. Midway through the second shelf, she heard the voice again. Stopping all the cleaning, she tried to listen. The muffled words left with the noise.

"Who's there?" she asked to the air. Everything was still.

When she resumed the noisy cleaning, the whispers returned. It spoke continuously; Hermione thought it sounded like calling. She strained to make out what it said, but the more she tried, the less she heard. Again, she stopped the objects and only met silence.

"Are you a ghost?" she asked tentatively. The house settled into its death once more.

Hermione shook her head and animated the items. No sense in being crazy, she thought fiercely. The voice returned, and her strong face fell. Hermione moved all around the room, listening for the sound and not the words. The back window seemed to be the direction that yielded the best results. She stood with her back toward the window, wand drawn, scanning the room for any apparitions. Just a step before touching the glass, she recognized the murmur.

_"Hermione. Hermione."_

Breath caught in her lungs, Hermione stumbled back, tripping over the unsteady plant stand. The heavy clay pot tumbled to the ground in a deafening crash. The orange vessel shattered into several pieces; its precious soil spilt across the floor, green leaves brittle and broken. She stopped all the cleaning charms immediately. Rags, broom, and dusters all fell to the floor simultaneously.

Distraught, Hermione bent down to examine the mess. The plant had been a fern, most of its delicate fronds withered from neglect, crumbling to a million pieces as soon as she laid a finger on them. Picking away the dead stalks, she cleaned the remaining soft core. Perhaps the fern could still be saved; she set it aside. As she uttered "reparo" on the broken pot and watched the soil and pieces fly back together, a bizarre and foreign thought invaded her mind.

She'd done this exact motion before. This exact plant, this exact pot.

It was so real that she felt shock at having forgotten such concrete facts. The memory of _him_, of herself, settled naturally into her mind, so much so that she could not imagine having not known it before. And yet, Hermione knew without a doubt that this recollection had an alien feel, that something had happened to make her forget it. It was hers, yet at once, not hers. She could not think of why it escaped her for so long; it was completely inconsequential.

Luna's words echoed in her mind strangely. _Are there any plants?_

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><p>AN: Up next, what Hermione has just remembered.


	3. The Plant

**Chapter 3**

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As she pressed her hands against the sides of the newly repaired pot, Hermione felt herself walking down an echoing hallway.

The voice in the house was gone. All that was left was silence to magnify the memory of when she'd first held the pot. She thought of him, of the way he scoffed at the fern, and a small smile played on her lips. How could she have forgotten this?

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Hermione inched down narrow Hogwarts hallways toward Snape's office in small, overly careful steps as to not step on the hems of her school robes. She hugged a small orange terracotta pot to her chest as it it were precious, precious cargo. The pot contained a small fern plant, its tendrils partly open, spindly and delicate like something out of a painting. When she came close to his office, the eager student stopped and adjusted the way the leaves were positioned for aesthetic effect. Snape seemed the type to appreciate those types of things, she thought. His office and classrooms were always impeccably arranged for maximal authority.

Staying close to the wall, she continued along her way slowly, picking off any unsightly petals—which seemed to be a never-ending chore. As soon as every yellowing leaf was picked away, some other imperfection caught her eye, and she felt compulsion to pick those away as well. First it was the yellow ones, then the irritatingly small ones, then the asymmetric ones.

Like an artist, she could not find a state of perfection. _Stop,_ she scolded herself; there weren't going to be any leaves left if she kept going.

Suddenly, faster than she could process, her body met an unexpected sharp force. Ramming against something blonde and gasping, she fell back, potted plant flying out from her grip. The clay slammed into the floor with a crash. Hermione was on the floor, disoriented and horrified. Her fern lay in the distance on the dungeon ground.

"Watch where you're doing!"

"Oh my, Hermione. I'm terribly sorry!" a meek melodious voice called.

She looked at the other girl and felt incredible annoyance. Luna Lovegood, what a careless fool of a witch! Taking a deep breath, she calmed her temper and forced a stiff looking smile. "It's all right, Luna. A simple Reparo will do," she said.

Hermione took the fern out from the shattered pot and spilled soil. A wand wave forced the pot back together and filled it with every last crumb of dirt from the floor. She placed the fern in the fixed pot and pushed it into place. The previously pert and beautiful plant now looked rather pathetic.

"Here," Luna quickly offered, "I can fix it up!"

She spoke some sort of musical spell and tapped her wand to the beat on the rim of the pot. The fern's crushed fronds immediately straightened again, sprouting a few new leaves in the process. One of the stalks which hung together by a single twisting filament healed with the halves joined in opposite directions. The bottom leaflets faced up and the top ones faced the floor. Luna tapped at it again, but it stubbornly refused to be righted.

"Wow, bugger," she muttered, breathy and thin.

Hermione wrinkled her brow. "How did you do that? What kind of spell is that?"

"Plant healing, my dad taught it to me. Really sorry about this one." She pointed to the unnatural stalk. "It's like bones, just going to have to grow a new one."

Picking up the pot, Hermione stood up. Her face was marred by a small scowl that spoke of her displeasure at someone knowing more magic than her. Luna soon followed suit and shook her long messy hair as she got to her feet.

"Um, thanks," the brown-haired witch muttered halfheartedly. She looked at the twisted stalk with disdain.

As if reading her mind, the other girl stared directly into her eyes and said, "He'll like it."

"Who?"

"Snape. I'm sure he'll love it. It's unique!"

She snorted at the reassuring comment. As if Snape could_ love_ anything.

"It's fine, Luna. It really is," she said absently as she turned away. Luna shrugged and continued upward out of the dungeons. After a few steps, she spun around and stared after Luna. The younger girl was skipping, each step springing full of joy before she reached the stairs. How had she known whom the fern was for? Hermione's gazed trailed in envy.

One foot in front of the other, she navigated the maze-like dungeons toward his office. The empty halls echoed with each footstep, bringing a tightening anxiety to her chest. There was no reason to be afraid, she knew that much logically. He'd already said yes to her request for a letter of recommendation; there was no reason for him to reject her gift or her new request. And yet her heart thumped painfully as she approached his door.

At the door, she hesitated before knocking; much less than when she came last, but still a fair bit. Once she found the courage to rap on the heavy wooden door, she immediately took a step back and hugged the clay pot. She stood almost a meter back as if expecting him to open the door himself.

A muffled "yes" came from the door frame. There was no mistaking the irritation in his deep voice. Hermione stopped, wondering if she should run back to Gryffindor Tower. Her fingers traced the rim of the pot as she thought about simply leaving the pot beside his door with a note. As she was deep in contemplation, the door suddenly swung open. She jumped, very nearly dropping the pot again.

"Are you going to stand there forever, Miss Granger? If you have no intentions of entering, I suggest you scamper away and leave me to my work," he said softly, barely audible from her distance.

Hermione nervously entered the office.

The room was dim, lit only by a few tall white candles around his desk. Their flickering light cast strange glints on the many jars behind him, illuminating their edges but not their contents. The glass vials and jars were neatly stacked on shelves from floor to ceiling. She quietly stepped forward and sat down in the chair opposite him, clearly stiff with unease.

"Is there something you require, Miss Granger? I have already told you—"

"No sir," she quickly answered, unintentionally cutting him off. Snape narrowed his eyes and regarded her with undisguised impatience. The professor bore through her with his exacting gaze while he scribbled something on the essay he was grading, as if to finish some thought she'd interrupted. He picked up the parchment and sat it on a pile to his right, cold eyes never leaving Hermione. She swallowed involuntarily, palms becoming cold and clammy. "I—I just—" she stammered, shaken by his steady attention.

He sneered, set his quill down, and crossed his arms over his chest. The gesture only made her more tense, which she suspected was his intention all along. Suddenly feeling silly, she became determined to not fall prey to his amusement. She placed the pot on his desk and forced herself to spit out her words. "I just wanted to thank you for agreeing to write a letter for me. I wanted to give you this fern to show my appreciation." Hermione stumbled over her words slightly and added, "And I really do appreciate it!" as an afterthought.

Snape briefly swept his gaze over the plant, pausing at the oddly mended stalk. He looked quite unimpressed.

"It won't suffer in the dungeon without light, won't grow all tall and starved-looking. It'll be quite nice once it grows, I promise. It's a fern, yeah." She continued, rushing her words at full speed then wincing as she realized she hardly made sense.

"That much is obvious," he cut her off.

His student sucked in a nervous breath and rambled onward, "Well, sir. I just was wondering—you know—"

"No, I don't know, Miss Granger."

"Well, I—what I meant was—" the words seemed to knot together as she tried to stay coherent under his dismissive sneer. The chill of the dungeons suddenly seemed to creep up on her, causing her knees to tremble. Snape only added to her rising blood pressure as he stared at her silently.

"Sir," she calmed herself down and dictated slowly, "my application requires the proposal of a specific research project. I was wondering if—"

"If you could trade your plebeian fern for a bit of my divine inspiration?" he smirked maliciously as he interrupted her. "And why should I help you anymore in this ludicrous endeavor, Miss Granger? Surely Professor Slughorn would be the one to speak to. He is—ah, what it is they call them these days—the Potions Master?" Words long and drawn out, he took every available syllable and pause to mock her. Hermione creased her brow at his condescension; she refused to be intimidated by his petty words. Two can play at this game.

"But sir, I would like my proposal to be relevant. Professor Slughorn hasn't been actively brewing or researching for very many years now. Surely your expertise is much more up to date. Unless you feel you're not—" She purposely paused, hoping she could challenge his ego.

"Unless what?" Snape muttered icily, daring her to insult him.

The bait was taken. Looking at him with her most innocent eyes, Hermione pretended to completely misinterpret his demeanor. "Unless you are too busy, sir. I would understand completely if you were!"

The wizard leaned back in his chair and considered her for a moment, shifting his expression from one of barely concealed irritation to amusement. He tapped his long, raw-boned fingers on the desk and gave her a small smirk. A glint in his told her that he was fully aware of her poorly executed attempt at manipulating him. "Well played, Miss Granger. One would have not suspected such an attempt from a Gryffindor." Hermione smiled sheepishly but quickly resumed her clueless face as he continued, "But don't feel too satisfied with yourself, you've absolutely no subtlety."

"And will you be teaching me that as well, sir?" She ventured cheekily.

Instead of scoffing at her, he laughed. "See me after class this Friday. I shall have a project in mind by then."

"Oh, thank you, sir!" Hermione burst into a huge uncontrollable smile and stood up quickly, knocking her chair backwards in the process. Snape snapped his eyes shut at the disturbance of wood falling on stone and scoffed at her.

"Get out of my office before you knock over something important," he said tersely, waving his hand for her to depart as soon as possible. But the bite in his tone was half-hearted. Obediently hurrying out, Hermione could feel her whole being swell with joy. For the first time all term, she felt hopeful that she was a step above everyone else, that she had some solid plans for the summer and for advancing herself. Her proposal was going to beat out all those other students; she just knew it.

The dungeons seemed sort of quaint and beautiful all of a sudden. She thought she heard him mutter "stupid chit" to himself as she cross the doorway, but it just made her smile even wider. She'd stared down the fearsome Professor Snape and lived to tell the tale. And, if only for a brief moment, she swore that she'd seen respect in his eyes.

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	4. The Dream

**Chapter 4**

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The woods were dark and damp, each twig and each leaf no more than black streaks to the corners of blurred vision. He ran, twisting through the trees blindly, but could not find any way out nor any landmarks which which to calm his fearful nerves. Breath growing thin, the man felt himself tire; his every step through the moist underbrush was heavier than the previous one, draining strength and will. He grew light-headed; blood pooled toward his feet.

"Severus," a chilling voice hissed through the darkness.

Despite his heavy eyelids and failing consciousness, the wizard straightened himself. "Yes, my lord," he replied, sounding hoarse and frail as if he would wither away at any moment. Body swaying with the breeze, he tried to bow but collapsed on the forest floor instead.

"You have been a most loyal and useful servant," Voldemort breathed through his thin lips, barely moving them. "So I will give you the choice—a soul for a soul. Will you take her place?"

Snape could not lift himself from the ground; the world swam around him. All he could see was the glistening white of his lord's alabaster wand against the blackness. He transfixed his eyes on the wand—so familiar, so menacing. He felt intense fear, not for himself, but for her. His soul for Hermione, there was no question; it was not a choice, it was law. "Yes. Anything, anything," he whispered through his dizziness.

A barely audible hiss came from Voldemort's lips as he smiled cruelly.

A thick, slithering sound filled his senses. Snape could barely register the event as the giant snake raised its head and shot forward. It sank its long fangs into his neck, and he felt potent poison burning and twisting through him, collecting in his heart and mind. The pain all but pushed out all his other senses. Hermione's face looked down at him, appearing from nowhere, her eyes were blank; she did not care for him, not even in his last moments. Voldemort laughed, his thin voice sounding of wind traveling from the distance. It was almost like a faint, piercing whistling.

Snape woke with a start. The kettle was screeching in the kitchen.

His hand automatically flew to his neck to cover where his wound had been. Once he was sure that it had only been a dream, he shut off the fire with a wand flick and looked down at the pile of papers in front of him. He'd fallen asleep going through endless pile of bureaucratic paperwork. Heart still pounding erratically, the headmaster straightened the papers he'd scattered in his nightmare for lack of a better thing to do. His hands shook uncontrollably as he tried to stack them.

This was the seventh time in a row he'd dreamed of the forest. Severus Snape was never one to place much belief in prophecy, but he was certain of this warning. There was a tough, unyielding feeling about the fact. It felt like chewing old bread left out for too many days. No matter how clever he was, this was not an omen he could fight or run from.

But he'd be damned if he did not plan for the uncertainties ahead.

.

.

Pacing back and forth in front of the dwindling fire, Snape contemplated his options in a bizarrely rational manner. It was November; he knew there was time yet, but what time he had was not to be wasted in hysterics. McGonagall could take care of the school when he was gone. That much he was certain. Slughorn would make sure that Hogwarts did not suffer a loss of reputation. The man was a bit of a weasel, but even weasels had their uses.

Hopefully Potter would be sufficiently coached and prepared; perhaps he was already and Dumbledore simply did not let him know? This, he expressed concern over as the Potter boy was woefully and unprecedentedly idiotic. But there were ways to circumvent the problem of his death. He could prepare a proxy, a type of hidden riddle that Potter could not refuse to relay his messages. Perhaps something promising a golden nugget about his equally idiotic father.

And God forbid Potter failed, it wouldn't be as if the world ended. He had plans to ensure the boy's survival at all costs, that much would justify his death—his debt and his penance. Dark times, dark times, they'd all shake their head and moan about the horror, but it would pass. If not Potter, another would rise to the challenge. The world was a wheel such that no one man can stand at the top for very long, and despite Voldemort's power, Snape knew the Dark Lord was just a man, for he did not have the grace to be more.

Then there was Hermione. He allowed himself the momentary weakness of thinking of her and found that she seemed to drown out everything else. An acute despair gripped him when his mind lingered on the way her eyes stare at him blankly. He should have left her alone all along. It only served to make the state of affairs all the more regrettable that he still remembered while she did not. The small twinge in his chest became unbearable as a dreaded realization struck him: he might never even see her again.

He was going to pass like a whisper that she'd barely notice.

It was for the best, he supposed, so she could live an untainted life. But the more he thought about it, the more he felt cheated. He didn't need her to feel anything for him, that he could sacrifice, but he desperately needed her to know the lengths he would go for her. He could care less if the mindless masses condemned him, but she couldn't.

Snape suddenly stopped mid-step, brow furrowed and eyes darting around almost feverishly. There was a way to reverse the spell—he'd been too hasty and thinking in the wrong paradigm. A single counter spell was not the answer. _Memory enchantments made against the will of the victim must always dissolve through pieces._Where had he seen the line? The blockish script on yellow parchment flashed in front of his eyes. He tapped the sturdy wood of the table impatiently then stumbled over to his bookshelf.

He pulled out a large charms text and flipped through it, looking more for context rather than content. If he saw the page, he could instantly recognize the words. The paper color wasn't right in this one. Snape set the book on the floor and continued to its neighbor. It, too, did not feel right; the text was too small. One by one, he pulled out all of the books and discarded them once they failed to match his mental image. When he'd cleared three shelves without any luck, he suddenly remembered where the book laid.

Slamming the text in his hand down on a precarious stack, he cursed. Of course it had to be the last place he would consider. The damn book was at his house.

Quickly stepping over the mess on the floor, he moved toward the fireplace, kicking down a tower of books in the process. The dark-haired man threw a fistful of Floo powder into the flames. "14 Spinner's End!" he shouted, suddenly intensely awake from the mental rush. The green fire flared upwards, and he stepped into its blazing arms without so much as a blink.

The house's tiny fireplace spat him out in a cloud of soot. Snape pointed at the four corners of the freezing room with this wand and lit a series of nearly burnt out candles. Not even bothering to brush the chimney dust from his robes, he hastily ran to the door. The image of the book was extremely clear to him: fourth shelf behind the door, middle of the row...the red spine seemed to glow in the flickering light.

Yanking the book out of its resting place, he went over to the dining table to study it. _Forgetfulness and Deeper Forgetfulness_, it was aptly titled. The wizard flipped through the pages looking for the specific line he'd recited in his head and felt cold and uncharacteristically thirsty. The tea! He'd left the blasted kettle on the stove untouched. Fishing out a glass from the kitchen cabinets, he filled it with water from his wand and waited for it to warm. Merlin knows how long ago he'd used the actual faucet.

Settling back down at the table with his steaming glass, he thumbed to the chapter on antidotes and found the magic paragraph. "Memory enchantments made against the will of the victim must always dissolve through pieces," he read aloud. "Full restorations are not always possible." Why yes, thank you for the obvious. "Memories cannot be shown to the victim explicitly or restored through spellcasting, but rather must originate from his/her own mind through a natural process of inception."

Snape set his glass down and groaned in annoyance. Like he was a bloody miracle maker. "Inception can be achieved through reintroduction of the memoire enchantment in relevant sounds, sights, and items." Sounds and sights were out of the question, but items he could manage. But how many? He combed through the text without luck. As many as he could manage then.

Glancing around the room, he tried to find something that Hermione had seen or touched. None of the books were good candidates. The newspaper? She did love to read that piece of drivel when they were together. Snape ran over to the stack of papers on the end table and scoff as he thumbed through them; they were all too recent. Neatly stacking them by date, he set them back. This was ridiculous. She'd never been to his house, so of course there was nothing of use.

But the house was not completely worthless, he thought. It could be the vessel through which he gave her the items. Hermione would not refuse it if it were left to her. Everything was an opportunity to the girl and a house was no different. Yes, he decided, he would gather up the right items and plant them all around the house.

'Ah—but what if she never touched them?' a nasty voice nagged in the back of his mind. Snape ignored the worrying question, but only because he had no other choice. What else could he do? He could certainly try other things-but it seemed prudent to have some sort of solid plan to fall back on in case of failure. It would take the better part of a few months to just process his will through the bloody bureaucracy and bequeath it all to her, never mind testing the inception on some unwitting subject or come up with a better idea.

The will! He had to go write the will so it could be submitted the next morning!

The headmaster rushed back to his office and feverishly scratched out the document.

_"I, Severus Snape, of 14 Spinner's End, Yorkshire, United Kingdom, declare that this is my Last Will and Testament, written while of sound mind and..."_

He paused for a moment before continuing.

Sound mind indeed...


	5. The Book

**The Book**

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Snape's coffee table was covered in tiny, alphabetically organized boxes. It was almost evening, and Hermione had only just gotten through the T's. Somewhere between deciding what to give to Hogwarts and what to sell, she'd begun to start reading the books. It was not until the daylight crept away, and she found herself unable to see the words, that she finally noticed how late it had gotten.

The girl cursed under her breath and placed her book inside of an open box. She needed to send Luna a note that she'd be home late. Hermione lit a small fire in the fireplace and reach up for the Floo powder only to discover it was practically empty. Throwing the entire thing into the fire only made the weak flames glow a sickly yellow-green. Best it could do, she supposed, and tossed her tiny note into the fireplace. There was no way to tell whether it made it across or simply burnt up in the fire, and she tried to not worry either way. Hermione's stomach made an empty rumble when she stood up. Perhaps it was time for some dinner.

Careful not to disturb her castle of boxes, the witch slipped around the couches toward her purse which lay on the kitchen table. One of the chairs was drawn out from when she last sat down. There was just something about drawn chairs that invoked the habit in her to restore order. Instinctively, she pushed it into the table.

The rickety dining chair bumped against something on the floor, and she tried to shove it toward the table again, shaking it a bit to the left and right. The spindly chair refused to be put in its place. Hermione bend down under the table to see what was the matter and found that one of its legs was bumping against something. A quick sweep with wandlight revealed that it was a rectangular object, trapped under the table. She summoned it toward her with an outstretched hand. A leathery spine flew into her hand.

'Great', she thought, 'yet another book.'

Coming out from under the table, Hermione sat down on the previously stubborn chair and took a good look at the book. It was a thick and heavy tome with its pages wrinkled and stuffed, as if there were too many for the covers to keep inside comfortably. Yellowing parchment stuck out of it at odd angles. A quick flip through sent a cloud of musty dust into the air—grey spores from water damage. Hermione pushed the book away and held her breath, waiting for the mold to settle into the darkness. One of the parchment notes stuffed inside fell onto the table as she did so.

Hermione held her wand to the note and wrinkled her brow. The sharp typography was eerily familiar. In fact, it looked rather like her own handwriting.

"_Professor __Snape__, __please __accept __my __sincerest __apologies __for __damaging __your __book__._"

Puzzled, Hermione turned the parchment over to try and find a signature; the back was blank. She hadn't the foggiest recollection of writing such a note or anything that would warrant it. Holding the note closer, she inspected the writing again. Its words were written with spots of hesitating ink pooling around the bottom of letters, but it looked to be her own nonetheless. Perhaps the low light was playing tricks on her. Hermione lit the candles in the kitchen and stared at the note some more. It was even more uncanny in the light.

Summoning a quill, ink, and parchment from her purse, she closed her eyes and copied the message. Compared against the book's note, it was nearly identical. But it made no sense—she'd never touched a book of his, much less ruined one.

Hermione gingerly pulled back the book by a corner and glanced at the title.

_Multi__-__use __Magical __Materials_

And then she remembered it, clear as it were yesterday.

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**.**

For the third time in a week, Hermione found herself nervously standing meters outside her professor's office. She held a large book close to her chest while trying to work up the courage to knock. Always hesitating, always afraid, always clutching something, she thought wryly.

"Miss Granger, I can hear you shuffling outside!"

The young witch gave a startled yelp and rushed forward into the office. Only two steps in, she froze with her hand still on the door knob. Snape, too, froze in mid motion, interrupted by her sudden entrance. He scowled at her, one hand holding a teacup halfway to his lips.

Hermione broke the silence first. "I'm terribly sorry to inter—"

"I don't recall—"

" —rupt your teatime, sir—"

"—telling you to enter."

Both fell silent.

"I'm—", "As—" they said in unison, fighting for the room's sound.

Snape paused, as if anticipating more hurried words from her. Once it seemed that Hermione was allowing him the floor, he continued, "—you've been fidgeting outside my door for ten minutes fully knowing our appointment is not until—"

"5 o'clock. I know." She cringed as she'd interrupted him again.

"—5 o'clock." He finished his sentence slowly.

Hermione let go of the doorknob and glanced at her watch. "I could go—" It was more of a courtesy suggestion than a real one; surely he would let her stay on account that he wasn't really busy.

Snape set his teacup down on his desk and stared at her. The corners of his lips twitched as he stated flatly, "Yes."

"You really want me to go outside, sir?"

"Yes."

"Oh, well, alright then—"

Hermione pulled the door closed as she stepped backwards. Glancing at her watch again, she leaned against the wall. Five minutes seemed like an eternity, even with the distraction of flipping through her book. At exactly five, Hermione burst through the door, announcing, "It's 5 o'clock, sir!"

Her professor was frozen again in mid action, this time with a quill in hand. "Have I invited you in, Miss Granger? I don't recall—"

"Sorry, sir," she muttered as she stepped backwards into the hallway and pulled the door closed. Another five minutes passed in an excruciatingly slow manner, mostly due to Hermione checking her watch every ten seconds. It was clear now that he was trying her. It took every bit of self control for her to not enter his office and demand his attention. How rude of him to purposely delay her!

Five minutes turned into ten into twenty. Hermione gave the door one last glance and decided to leave. She refused to give him the satisfaction of wasting anymore of her time. Just as she picked up her bag, she heard his voice crawling out from under the door.

"Enter, Miss Granger."

Hermione took a deep breath to calm herself and opened the door slowly. One look at his smirk set her anger bubbling inside. It was a force in itself, propelling blood faster than her heart. Slightly flushed and jittery, she sat down across from him with an undisguised glare.

"Perhaps others have commended you for your eagerness, but I think you'll find that people outside the watchful eye of Hogwarts will not reward you for it. Keep it in, Miss Granger; pretend you don't care, or no one will listen to you. And that would be just tragic, now wouldn't it?"

Continuing to glare, Hermione pressed her lips together.

"Well, if you are not going to start talking, I suppose we can end our meeting. I do hear it is remarkable outside today." He dragged out his words as he pushed his chair back.

"No, no!" Hermione interjected suddenly, "I need to discuss my proposal with you, sir!"

"Do you now?"

"Yes, I—" She placed her book on the desk and pushed it toward her professor. The student took a deep breath, seeming to gather her confidence before she continued. "It's about what we discussed last time. I've read through this book you gave me, but I've got a different proposal idea that I want to write."

Snape pulled his chair back toward the desk, filling the room with an echoing screech of wood against stone. "You don't like my idea?" he asked icily.

"No! I mean yes! I liked it! I just think it would be better if I wrote about something I came up with. And I want to ask for your help and your professional opinion on it," she quickly replied. The air pressure in the room seemed to suddenly drop and suck her forward. Hermione withdrew her hands to hold them beneath the table.

"Well then, go on, impress me," he challenged her.

"I still want to write about antidote delivery, but I want to propose building the antidote to slowly and continually release inside the body instead of adding an automating dosage enchantment. That way, there are no cyclic fluctuations where half the time there's too much antidote and half the time, there's too little."

"And how do you propose to do this?"

"By encapsulating the potion in a slowly degrading substance!" She responded proudly.

Snape considered the idea for a moment. "A merit-able suggestion, Miss Granger, but you think too much like a Muggle. There's very little magic in such an idea. The potioneers will not like it." He seemed quite satisfied that he'd found a weakness in her proposal.

"That's why I wanted your help, sir. I don't know what type of substances are suitable and if charms could be used. I thought you'd be more knowledgeable than anyone else on the matter. What do you advise?" She appealed to his vanity.

"I advise against this direction," he said bluntly.

"But, sir, I think it could be quite productive!" She protested.

Levitating his book back into his bookshelf, Snape gave Hermione a weary look. Gryffindors were always so hard-headed, the fools. "I suppose original thought ought to be encouraged. This is a text on magical materials. Perhaps you will find it enlightening," he said blandly as he summoned a brown, leather-bound text. "Might I suggest the chapter on resins." Hermione's face lifted at the sight of the book. She immediately reached forward to grab the book but caught herself and stopped. Must not be too eager, she told herself.

"What a quick learner you are, Miss Granger."

She smiled sheepishly.

Once the book settled down on the desk, Snape flipped through it to check that it was the right one before handing it to his student. Hermione snatched the book over excitedly and opened the heavy cover. "Thank you, sir!" she exclaimed.

"If that is all—"

"Yes!" she accidentally interrupted him again. "I mean—I was also wondering if I could meet with you next Monday to discuss my progress."

Snape rolled his eyes. "And I suppose you'll want to meet every Monday after that."

"Well, now that you mention it, sir—I think it'd be really beneficial," Hermione said as she nodded and thumbed through the book simultaneously. She was going to be accepted into the program with this proposal, no doubt about it. Out of anything she'd ever felt, hope was most supreme and addicting.

"Marvelous," he said dryly.

"So I'll see you next Monday at 5pm, sir."

"If you must."

His eyes followed her hands as she shut the book and picked up her bag. The young witch seemed to be deliberately taking her time. "I want to say thanks. Again." He merely blinked at her. "It means a lot to me that you're supporting my idea and all. I'm really grateful to you, Professor—" Snape gave a disgusted look. Did the girl ever shut up?

"Goodbye."

"I just want to say—"

"_Goodbye_, Miss Granger."

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**.**

Hermione ran all the way to the Great Hall where dinner was just beginning to serve itself; she could barely wait to begin reading and writing. _Original __thought __ought __to __be __encouraged_! Brilliance would always be rightly recognized! She sat down beside Ron with an air of purpose, as if she were a cup spilling greatness. Pushing her plate forward, she slammed her book down causing a slight cloud of dust to blow out from its old pages.

"Whoa!" Ron snatched up his plate and held it protectively from the dust.

"Sorry, Ron," she muttered as she flipped through the heavy pages. "I'm just so excited about this! I'm going to apply for an apprenticeship, and I think I'll get it!"

The food nearly fell out of his mouth. "You want to work during the summer? Don't we do enough work here?" he said in a horrified, full-mouth muffle. Hermione shot him a tired glare; she should have known the idea of professional development was beyond him.

"Honestly, Ron, a Hogwarts education won't give you everything. I refuse to be some entry level ministry secretary. Maybe you ought to apply for something too," she lectured him.

Ron set his plate down and glanced at her book. "I think I'll take my chances. Ministry secretary sounds quite glamorous," he replied sarcastically and pretended to turn up his nose.

Hermione stared at him as he stuffed a piece of bread into his mouth and chewed vigorously. "Don't you want to be something some more? To do something great?" Ron merely shrugged and continued chewing as if it were a trivial concern. "Nothing?" Hermione inquired, alarmed by his lack of aspiration.

The red-haired boy swallowed his food and turned to her. "Look, Hermione, it's not a bloody race. We can't all be famous or brilliant. I don't feel some higher calling like you or Harry. I'm a firm believer in working only as hard as you have to. All I want is to have some nice things, to have a nice house, a job, family, some friends. Are you're going tell me there's something wrong with that?"

But there was supposed to be something wrong with that, wasn't there? Suddenly, Hermione felt herself shrink back in her seat, unable to reconcile what she'd always been taught to think and what Ron said. Neither seemed right. She hadn't expected it, but Ron's words seemed infinitely more mature than anything she could think to say. The witch turned back to her book as if it held answers, but it was just a book about materials, about inanimate things, nothing more.

She grabbed a plate of kidney pie and took a bite so she did not have to reply. Perhaps she'd not given Ron enough credit after all.

"Can you pass the pumpkin juice, Hermione?" Ron pointed down the table to a nearly empty porcelain pitcher just as he resumed eating.

Still caught in her thought, Hermione absently reached for the pumpkin juice immediately to her right. Not expecting its lightness, her hand lifted it up with excessive force. Pumpkin juice flew out of the pitcher and all over the table in a sticky downpour. "Blimey," Ron sputtered as he tried to soak up the mess before it dripped over the table. "A bit of help here?"

But Hermione was too preoccupied to help. Her book was completely wet. Hurriedly waving her wand with drought charms, she felt her heart fall toward the floor. Professor Snape was going to murder her. The pages shriveled up as her charm acted, wrinkling and warping in the process as water evaporated, leaving behind sugar and a sickly orange pumpkin color. "Oh Merlin, no," she whispered as she tried to stop the charm from ruining another page. Then, using her robes, Hermione tried to blot the parchment.

"It's just a book, Hermione. Help me with the table. What's that charm again?" Ron pulled at her sleeve.

"It's not just a book, Ron! I borrowed it! It's Professor _Snape__'__s_ book!" Hermione exclaimed hysterically as she dabbed at the pages.

"Snape's book!" Ron became equally alarmed as he stopped tending to the table and jumped up to help her. When the book seemed to be as dry as it was going to get, he sat back down and patted Hermione on the back sympathetically. "Good as new!"

Hermione gave him an incredulous look and pointed at some blurred ink. "Good as new? It's completely ruined! He'll strangle me!"

"That's quite over dramatic, but I wouldn't put it past the git—" he corrected himself when he saw Hermione's widened eyes, "—now what I meant to say is: I think it looks fantastic. What if we held a flame or something to dry it out? _Incend__-_"

Shoving his wand out of the way, she huffed, "And burn it?"

"Good point," he reconsidered. "What about _Reparo__!_" The book fluttered weakly but refused to be fixed.

"Thanks for the effort," Hermione said, half-hearted, and placed the book on the seat beside her should further mishaps be on the horizon. What was she going to do? Maybe she could just keep the book forever and hope that he would not remember, but Snape was definitely not the forgetful type. Perhaps she'd silently slip it back onto his bookshelf. She'd be long gone and graduated before he ever found out. But that seemed so slimy and undignified. People ought to take responsibility for themselves!

She figured the middle ground was to write him a note of apology and leave it with the book on his desk. That way, she took full responsibility but would not have to face him and his wrath immediately. Hermione fully expected to be called to his office for a tongue lashing or some mysteriously assigned detentions once she gave the book back.

To her surprise, nothing happened. Snape acted as if he'd never received the book or her note. The only indication that he even knew was a single knowing smirk he gave her the morning after she'd left it on his desk. It was an expression that struck fear into her heart like nothing else. Hermione waited tensely every potions class for the moment he would explode, but it never came.

In hindsight, her constant anticipation anxiety was worse than any detention could have been.

He'd played her mercilessly, and she felt as though a line had been crossed.

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**.**

Hermione closed the book. It was completely black outside now.

Despite having remembered a few things, she knew she was standing on the rim of a deep and dark pool, just one step away from falling in completely. It wasn't just forgetfulness from an over-eventful year, because people forget events, they do not forget their attitudes. You cannot simply forget that you liked or hated someone—thoughts may be fleeting, but emotion is forever. She knew something had happened—some sort of sensitive information concerning Snape. Was it Voldemort and his Death Eaters who charmed her memory? Was it the Order? Was it her friends? Did she betray someone?

The young witch suddenly felt distrustful and disappointed in everyone around her. How could they have failed to undo such a terrible thing once it all ended, and what if she was a completely different Hermione all together because of it? The answers seemed to be in the house somewhere, screaming silently for her to find them.

Hermione blasted the window open with a jet of air and yelled, "_Expecto Patronum!_"**  
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A silver otter sprang forth and twisted past the frame before turning around.

"Luna, I'm not going to be home tonight."

The otter bounced in the air delightfully before speeding off to deliver her message.


	6. The Umbrella

A/N: Happy New Year! I'm a slow writer, but here's to speeding up this year.

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><p><strong>The Umbrella<strong>

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Gray morning crept through curtain edges like prying eyes. Hermione threw an arm over her face and rolled over. Instinctively, she knew it was quite late in the morning and she ought to be up. But she was dreaming of something beautiful, and she desperately wanted to continue. A few more minutes of sleep never hurt anyone. The girl shifted to a more comfortable position, and her knees bumped painfully into something solid.

Eyes snapping open, Hermione looked down at the unexpectedly offensive barrier. Her knees had hit a wooden support under the thinning fabric of a couch. Slowly, she rolled her head around and realized she was sleeping in someone else's house. Dream completely forgotten, the witch sat up and rubbed her eyes. It sounded of drizzling rain outside.

The floor around her was littered with tiny boxes and the remnants of the previous night's fish and chips. Hermione picked up a chip and threw it on the coffee table. Fish and chips always seemed like a fantastic treat—all the deep-fried delight a girl could want, but yet she always felt monumentally disappointed upon first bite. Neither the fish nor the chips were ever as delicious as she imagined. This time was no different. Grimacing at the grease left on her fingers from the chip, she looked around momentarily for a serviette before succumbing to laziness and wiping it on her robes.

What a mess.

After pulling back her unruly hair, Hermione stood up and stretched. There was an unpleasantly rank taste in her mouth, most likely due to her lack of tooth brushing the night before. 'Mum and dad would be so alarmed,' she thought to herself. Looking around, she noted with pride that the house was far more presentable today than it had been when she started.

Hermione grabbed her leftover beverage from last night and took a sip to try and get rid of the awful taste on her tongue. It wasn't exactly refreshing, but it would do. She then turned her attention to the boxes of books and levitated them back onto the stack on the table. With a wave, the fish and chips were swept up and dumped into the bin. It was time to go home.

It was only a drizzle outside the house, but Hermione suspected that it might be pouring at her flat. It was times like these that she regretted settling for a flat in a largely muggle community where she was required to apparate to the alley behind the building and walk around rather than straight to the doorstep. Hermione looked around for an umbrella, but the doorway was completely empty. She opened the hall closet next. It was filled with out of style, moth-eaten coats.

To her delight, there was a large, black umbrella leaning in the corner. Upon inspection, the umbrella seemed quite new, contrary to the rest of the closet. Hitching her purse higher on her shoulder, Hermione took the umbrella and stepped outside. After locking the door, she walked to the gap between the house and its neighbor and apparated away.

Just as she had suspected, it was pouring in London. Her muggle shoes were no match for the alley puddles and her feet were soaked within two steps. English summer rain-what was one to do? Hermione trudged forward to get to the street, holding her umbrella low to keep the rain out. For a brief moment, she had the feeling that someone was behind her. She quickly turned around, but the alley was empty.

Once she was on the street proper, she made toward her building. Again, she turned around with the sense that someone was behind her. There was still no one.

She continued until she was just before the steps to her house. It was then that she suddenly felt the gnawing feeling of someone behind her morph into a very real sensation of a hand on her shoulder. This time there was someone there, not in the street then, but on the open grounds of Hogwarts a long time ago. She didn't dare turn around. This thought was like her elusive morning dream-if she so much as twitched, it would escape her completely.

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**.**

She was in his office again, for what seemed the millionth time.

Snape shot her a glare and snapped his book shut. "If I remember correctly, Miss Granger, our need for interaction has passed," he said, slowing down at the end for effect. The comment barely registered a reaction from Hermione; she stood silently by the door. Her lack of response was quite apparent to him as she customarily rushed straight to the seat opposite of him to chatter about something irrelevant.

"Miss Granger?" He gave her an odd look.

Hermione inched forward with heavy steps and sat down rather stiffly. "I just wanted to thank you again for all your guidance. The —er —the decision — I received an owl about it this morning, and I thought — uh, I thought you'd like to know seeing as you've helped me so much. I really hate to be one of those people who you never hear from again — you know, you have to run into them sometime and ask before they let you know. And quite frankly, I don't see you as the type to run into me and ask, sir."

"I see you are here to waste my time again," Snape snapped. Hermione stopped and waited to continue.

"I wasn't chosen for the apprenticeship," she said simply. A bubble began to grow in her throat as she admitted it. Hermione straightened in her chair, determined to force away the feeling away. She added, "But I want to thank you for your help anyway."

"How tragic," her professor replied with a sneer. This pithy comment made Hermione's blood boil. It was a sort of textbook reply, used casually and automatically. How dare he belittle her failure?

Hermione burst out, "But it isn't fair! They should have chosen me. Don't you care at all?"

"Miss Granger," he began, voice dropping ever so slightly, "It isn't my job to care whether you succeed in your shameless overachieving or not. I'm not here to play agony aunt with you." Snape leaned back in his chair.

"But surely you care just a bit. I worked so hard on this. I bet I'm the only one out of all the applicants that came up with an original idea independently. I don't understand!" Hermione continued to whinge. The dam had broken and it was going to all flow out, regardless of the audience.

Snape folded his arms and replied coldly, "I thought you better than this, Miss Granger. You have let your successes skew your perspective. Perhaps this is a good experience for you."

Hermione felt her eyes grow hot. "You haven't any kind words to say, at all?"

Snape snapped back, "What would you have me say? You are beautiful? You are perfect? You deserve everything? I let you know in the beginning that you should have picked another topic. You only have yourself to blame."

This last strike hit straight at the heart, and Hermione felt her eyes water up and her throat swell shut. "You're wrong, sir. They loved my idea," she managed to croak out. Snape looked distinctly uncomfortable as it dawned on him that she was about to cry. Young girls were so temperamental!

"Miss Gran —"

"I'm sorry to have wasted your time, sir." Hermione stood up and left in a hurry, feeling ashamed and foolish that she'd not only cried in front of Snape but stupidly expected any consolation from him. She turned to go back to her quarters, but a rush of students were walking her way to get to class. The face of Ginny Weasley stood out amongst them. Not wanting anyone to see her tears, Hermione wiped her eyes and turned around. To her dismay, there were more students around the corner in this direction also. She looked around for any direction to go.

There was a door leading outside, but it was raining outside and bitterly cold. She looked left then right, hesitating about the choice, then headed for the door. She reasoned that she could walk around to another entrance. Better cold than humiliating herself in front of everyone. Upon leaving the castle, she instantly regretted it. Hermione couldn't help but cry even harder at the injustice of it all. There was no way to go but forward now. The soggy ground soaked her shoes in just a few steps. She wanted to walk faster, but her knees were shaking from the cold and could only move in small, mechanical steps.

Hermione's teeth chattered loudly as she trudged forward. Suddenly, she felt the rain stop and warm air enclose her. There was a hand on her shoulder. She turned around in small shivers. A tall, black figure held an umbrella over her. At first, the water running down her face made it impossible to see anything, but as the umbrella shielded her, she began to make out the face of her professor.

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**.**

Snape sat in his office, unnerved by the sudden outburst of his student. Perhaps he had been too harsh on her? He contemplated whether he had handled that particular episode correctly. The little green fern on his desk seemed to stare at him accusingly. He reminded himself that young people were always terribly irrational.

The dark-haired man peeked into the hallway but could not catch sight of her. It seemed that he'd waited too long in his office, and she was well on her way. Just before he ducked back in to forget the incident, he spotted her through the window on the door leading outside. Snape rushed into his office for his umbrella. Merlin forbid she go and do something stupid like throw herself off a bridge. Granger was definitely the neurotic type to do so over something petty like a rejection letter.

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**.**

Hermione pushed her wet fringe aside to get a good look at her professor. He had a strange expression that seemed to not fit his face. "Don't be so melodramatic, Miss Granger. Where is that sensibility you always claim you have?" he lectured her. Too ashamed to look him in the eye, she stared at the soggy grass below. She sniffed and wiped her eyes on her robes.

"Sorry to have bothered you, sir."

Snape sighed, feeling distinctly out of place. "It's quite alright, Granger. Why don't we—"

"I just don't understand they wouldn't chose _me_," Hermione interrupted, still sniffing. "Am I not good enough?"

"Let's not enjoy the delightful weather any longer, Miss Granger." He ushered her back toward the castle, holding the charmed umbrella carefully over her.

But Hermione hadn't finished. She turned up to him and asked, "Just be honest with me, sir. What is wrong with me? Am I that unpleasant? Why would he chose someone else?"

Snape stopped and sighed loudly. "Must you always be so —" he began in an exasperated tone, but thought better of it and continued more kindly, "Let me explain this in a manner you can understand. Sometimes, it doesn't matter if you are good enough. It doesn't even matter if you are better than everyone else. And it certainly won't matter how hard you try. That isn't how things work in the world."

"Then what does matter?" Hermione asked in a panicked voice.

He paused before answering. "Who you are and the people you know. You must understand, to these wizards, you are no one."

His student was visibly alarmed by this comment. "But that's not right!" she exclaimed. "If merit doesn't matter, then how are we ever supposed to make progress? How are people supposed to rise out of their status? Maybe some of the best advances for wizard kind are lost because we aren't given chances. This is so barbaric!"

"Well, like the old saying goes: they don't know you, but they know money."

Hermione thought about it for a moment before saying firmly, "One day I'm going to change that."

"Best of luck overturning centuries of prejudice," he replied with a sneer.

"Well thank you, sir," she said very seriously. "You know, I feel oddly relieved. I don't suppose you meant for it, but I'm loads better now than I was so thanks."

Snape stared at her incredulously. "Some people are just hopeless."

"What's that mean?"

"In case you haven't noticed, Miss Granger, we are outside. It is November and it is raining and you are making me late for my class. If you have anymore comments, you may write them down and submit them to my suggestion box," he said sarcastically. Hermione took the hint and walked back with him under the protection of his umbrella.

"You've got a suggestion box?" she asked.

"Yes." he smirked at her. "It's conveniently located in the rubbish bin."

"Hermione!"

"Hermione!"

The brown-haired witch blinked, seeing with limited comprehension. She came back first noticing the cold patter of the rainwater. This was followed by the unpleasant sensation of grit between her toes and the soles of her shoes. Finally, she saw a wet Luna, waving at her in every direction.

"Hermione! What are you doing? Is this some kind of new activity? Can we do it together?"

"I'm just coming home. Nothing special," she explained. Hermione extended her umbrella over Luna and gestured for them to walk toward their flat.

Luna looked mildly disappointed. "Oh, well you were standing there in the rain for quite a while."

"Was I?"

Luna fumbled around her pockets for her key. "Oh dear, I must have left it upstairs," she said as she came up empty. Hermione rolled her eyes and fished hers out in one swift motion. The heavy wooden door yielded easily to her push. Once inside, she asked Luna again.

"How long was I standing there?"

"I counted 5 minutes before I came down, but it could have been more before I noticed you were there," she replied lightly, as if it didn't alarm her at all. Luna dried them with a wave of her wand. The charm made Hermione's hair stand straight up and the inside of her shoes extremely uncomfortable.

Hermione took off her right shoe. A stream of sand fell out as she tilted it. "I really wish you wouldn't use that charm. It never quite works right," she complained as she emptied the other shoe.

"Sorry Hermione, it always works for me!" They walked up the stairs toward their flat. Luna added as an afterthought,"You wouldn't happen to have seen a Dillyforth, would you?"

"No, I don't know what those are." Hermione gave her an annoyed look. Once inside the door, she took the umbrella with her, not having the heart to leave it where the other umbrellas sat.

Luna gave a knowing wink as she entered behind Hermione. "Dillyforths can make you skip a bit in time! They have massive purple-ish eyes, very sharp teeth, and a luxurious striped coat. I've always dreamed of touching one. I hear the experience quite surreal. Hermione, aren't you going to leave your brolly?"

"Oh, no, I think I'll take it with me," she stammered. "By the way, do you ever forget things, Luna?"

"Loads! I forgot our key just now."

Hermione clasped the umbrella close with its ribbon and sent it into her bedroom. "No, I mean, like, events. Do you ever forget things that happened at school or conversations you've had? And then you suddenly remember, and it seems so silly that you'd forgotten."

Her flatmate nodded intently. "That happens all the time. I think it's only natural when so much has happened in the last year. Sometimes dad shows me pictures, and I'm like 'Merlin, I forgot all about that!'"

"Oh, I suppose you're right," Hermione said softly, sounding both relieved and disappointed. "How's your dad anyway?"

Luna sat down at the kitchen table and brushed off some crumbs onto the floor. "They still won't let him leave St. Mungo's. I've tried a million times to tell them that he's not cursed or mental. But he'll come home eventually. He just needs to calm down."

"And hows your house?" Hemione asked out of courtesy. She felt far too fortunate that her parents and her home were still intact when many of her friends had neither comfort. It also made her terribly guilty that she didn't want to return to her perfectly intact home. But it was those few times when her mother accidentally called her father 'Wendell' that made it inhospitable to her

"Oh it's coming along great. The builders are doing such a great job with the repairs. Will you go with me to see it next week?" Luna asked excitedly.

"Of course," Hermione replied, feeling slightly uncomfortable as she was the one who'd wrecked the house in the first place. She sat down across from Luna and listened to her ramble about all the strange artifacts they would get to see. Suddenly, Hermione giggled, causing Luna to stop.

"What's funny?"

"Oh, I just had a funny thought. You wouldn't think it was funny though."

Luna shrugged and continued talking dreamily.

Hermione nodded as if she were listening, but she was too busy laughing inside at what she'd just remembered: in her delirious state of upsettedness, she'd really been trying to ask Snape why Ron had chosen Lavender Brown over her.

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	7. The Doe

**The Doe**

**.**

**.**

_"Expecto Patronum!"_

A silver otter sprang forth into the evening air. It danced around, teasing the last leaves on the forest trees to relinquish their hold. Snape cursed under his breath. The irony of the moment was almost too much. Of all the times he required Lily, she retreated when her son was in need.

He cut through the cold night air with his wand to banish the patronus and turned his thoughts on Lily. It was a bit of trouble to reach her. There was too much for time to have erased; it was something he needed to believe. Yet with every closing of his eyes, he saw_ her_ instead. Washed out, but pervasive, she was a lonely type of desire.

He flipped through his memories of Lily and thought hard about her resonating light as she pulled him through an open field. Her hair gleamed in the sun as she turned to look at him. He could see the specks of brown within her green eyes. Inexplicably, he felt pulled into her eyes as matter into a collapsing nova. Brown edged toward green threads and bleed out from her pupils into her image. The girl sighed and came closer to his face. Suddenly, he was lying beside her, his heart pounding loudly. She was no longer Lily.

_"Expecto Patronum!"_

A strange creature, an otter with hoofs formed. Snape gritted his teeth in frustration and tried again. Lily, what was this all for if not Lily? Again, he pulled her image from the depths. He felt her red hair through his fingers as he placed a clip into her hair. She smiled at him and thanked him. The warmth grew within his chest and he let his fingers linger, pulling the strands around his finger. When he relaxed his grip, they stayed in messy brown ringlets. He did not permit himself to indulge further.

_"Expecto Patronum!"_

Again, a chimera ran across the forest floor, more of a doe than otter, but still not correct. Snape suppressed the urge to blast something apart. It would be foolish to alarm the campers stationed close by. He'd come too far to give up now. There was also more at stake here than just his pride. He took a deep breath and began for a fourth time. Truthfully, he could not recall her face well anymore. Every image simply turned into Hermione. This time, he kept his mind clear, turning over the feeling of Lily without seeing her face. It felt like lying to himself.

"_Expecto Patronum!_"

Finally, a doe dashed from the air. It was oddly foreign image, disappointing despite its silvery beauty, rather like the experience of revisiting a favorite childhood location and discovering it to be much smaller and less impressive than memory had suggested. Such a sensation was one that quickly sowed the seed of doubt. Perhaps the original had never been as memory suggested at all. The doe stared back into him as if it were questioning the purity of his request. He pushed the unpleasant thought away and directed her away toward a small, old tent in the forest. Careful to stay hidden, Snape allowed the doe to slowly drift forward. He stood still behind a curtain of decaying trees, waiting for a boy's arrival. Struggling to keep his mind clear, he waited for Harry Potter.

Soon, rustling amongst the shrubbery alerted his attention the arrival of said Mr. Potter. The boy moved tentatively, still searching for the remnants of the dissipated silver doe. He looked slightly crazed, a mixed product of hunger and delusional hope. The soft blue light of Potter's wand wavered and dropped to the ground as he bent to look into the ice for a sword.

Snape shook his head at the idiocy this entire business. It wasn't the irrationality of the situation that bothered him, it was the absurdity of relying on one hopeless boy. He watched until he was sure Potter had located the sword beneath the ice then departed. The rest was up to the foolish boy and his worthless Gryffindor valor.

Not looking back for a single reassuring glance, the wizard turned and pulled the hood of his thick cloak over his face to shield against the blistering cold. He swept across the forest floor westward, to where he knew Hermione would be, waiting in her little tent. It seemed obvious to him that his desire for her was silly, the delusions of a lonely mind, especially as she remembered nothing of them. But he could not ignore her presence, not when it was so close.

Desperation drove him toward her, as though he had been in a thousand years of darkness and a light suddenly shown where she laid. Finally, after countless steps and unravelled spells, he saw the dingy and soiled tent with fabric doors flapping in the wind. He could barely control his quickening breaths as he stared at the shelter. Snape stood frozen at lengths, conflicted by the thought of entering.

What would he find? Fantasy itself was so strong it felt sickening. The image of her throwing her arms around him played through his mind again and again. He could not move for fear of the dream disappearing, and reality stealing his hope. It was as if opening the tent would take away one more thing precious to him. Eventually, his impulsive side won over the fear.

Snape peeled back the door cautiously and peered into the small room; his chest gave a strange jump when he saw her lying on a cot in the corner, fast asleep. Hermione's hair was greasy and messy, and her bed clothes worn and threadbare. It was painful to see her gaunt and scared, even in dreamscape. The sensation left him angry, but he knew not why.

After casting an illusion about him, he reached for her, pushing hair out of her face. Hermione stirred, blinking in her drowsiness. She lifted her head to see if Harry had woken her. Tired and on edge, the girl glanced around cautiously. Harry was nowhere to be found; perhaps she had dreamt it. Her gaze passed right over where Snape stood hidden but did not stop.

Throat closing in response to the scrutiny, he closed his eyes and steadied himself, willing his beating heart to be silent and his limbs to stay still. What was he doing here? He had agreed to leave her alone and spare her the labeling of being with a sick bastard like himself. But the sight of her, real and tangible sent any resolve of his mind. At that moment, he had never regretted anything as much as casting the fateful Obliviate that robbed her of her love for him. How he longed to dash out and grab her, whispering his apologies for being so selfish.

Taking his wand, he flicked and muttered, _"Memora Vivere._"

The young witch seemed dazed for a moment, eyes glossy and empty. Hopes leaping up, Severus shed his charm. Hermione jerked her attention over to him and immediately raised her wand in alarm. She lurched backward on the bed against the tent wall, tangled in her covers.

"Hermione, it's me," he said softly.

"Snape! Keep your distance!" she replied fiercely. There was panic clear in her face; the reversal charm had not worked after all.

"_Memora Vivere!_" He cast the spell again.

Hermione cleverly shielded herself and stumbled out of bed.

"Hermione," he repeated in his kindest tone, a strange and rusty sound.

The witch turned to run, but she was not fast enough to beat his silent full-body binding hex. Falling down hard, Hermione blinked back the terror in her eyes. It was the look of dreading imminent harm.

"_Memora Vivere_." Snape pointed his wand at her a third, desperate time. Again, her eyes glazed over, but returned immediately to their terrified trembling.

"Hermione, can you not recall?" he whispered as he fell to his knees beside her. Raw-boned hands trembled, unable to express his regret, as they hovered over her face, wanting to touch her but frozen by her clear fear. He felt his insides sink. Here was Hermione lying on the ground before him, as real as his love for her. Yet there was no comprehension in her brown eyes, no glimpse of the warm way she used to gaze at him.

"Her—" he choked on his quivering words. He couldn't bear her scrutiny.

Emptiness in her mind spoke of the crippling truth that his charm had been far too good. Hermione would never know him as she once did. It was a black hole that sucked all sense, all reason, all will from him. It was as if the only light in his expansive darkness had just been extinguished, and he could no longer see meaning in the world. So draining was this thought that he felt himself pulled forward by the vacuum it created. What he would give for just one day or even one minute.

Raising his wand, he uttered that horrible word once more.

"_Obliviate._"

.

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End file.
